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WASHINGTON m) NAPOLEON 



A FRAGMENT. 



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WASHINGTON AND NAPOLEON. 



A FRAGMENT 








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TWO HUNDRED COPIES PRINTED FOR THE METROPOLITAN FAIR, HELD IN BEHALF 
OF THE SANITARY COMMISSION, IN THE MONTH OF APRIL. 

NEW YORK. 

1864. 






ADVERTISEMENT. 

A portion of this paper formed originally part of an article in 
Putnam's Magazine, inscribed, "Was Napoleon a Dictator?" The dis- 
cussion of tliis question was elicited by certain letters, some of whicb 
are contained in the officially published Correspondence of the Emperor 
Napoleon with his Brother Joseph; and others of which belong to a 
collection of letters addressed by Joseph Bonaparte to the writer of 
these pages. 

The paper as now offered was written for the Metropolitan Fair, 
in the hope of promoting, in some degree, its patriotic object. 

New York, March, ' 864. 



WASHINGTON AND NAPOLEON. 



A F R A G M p] N T . 



. The emperor himself was desirous of having his reign considered a 
dictatorship. This was at least the case in his exile, where, as it is well 
known and was natural, he occupied himself with his own name, as it 
would he judged h}^ posterity. On that distant rock where he died in exile 
he existed, though still in this life, yet removed from the living genera- 
tion over whicli he had ruled ; no man like him has stepped, still living, 
into the Past. Everything was extraordinary in this man — his end no 
less than his life. From the island in the southern hemisphere he 
could look upon his career which filled so large a portion of the 
northern, as a thing of history, completely closed ; and of no historic 
magnate have we records, official and private, so full as of him. 

Napoleon alluded, on several occasions, to Washington, and on one of 
these he observed, that some people had said that he ought to have made 
himself a French Washington. " All that I was allowed to he," he said, 
^' was a crowned Washington. For rae to imitate Washington would 
have been a niaiserie." He intended undoubtedly to convey the idea thit 
the circumstances, in which he was placed, and France, as he found her, 
•did not allow him to become a second Washington. This is obvious, 
but it is equally true that under no circumstances whatever would Na- 
poleon have been a man like Washington — never could he have parted 
with power. 

There are no two men in the whole compass of history more unlike 
than these two. There is, indeed, a double star in the firmament of 
history, the one component star of which is Washington, but his fellow- 



^ WASHINGTON AND NAPOLEON. 

star is not Napoleon ; it is William of Nassau, the fuunder of the Neth- 
erlands Rej^ublic, whom his countrymen did not attempt to call the Great, 
but who is named to this day Father William. Bonaparte, crowned or 
uncrowned, never was, and never could have been, a Washington. They 
were differently fashioned. The minds and souls of Washington and 
Napoleon differed no less than their bodies. The one was wholly Angli- 
can or Teutonic, the other essentially of the modern Southern European 
type — not Latin, as the favorite phrase now goes. There was nothing 
Roman in Napoleon. The one was great and noble as a calm and perse- 
vering man of duty ; the other impetuous, flashing, full of brilliant 
genius. Washington has ever appeared to us as the greatest historic 
model of sound common sense and sterling judgment, coupled with im- 
maculate patriotism, patient, just, and persevering, even to tenacity. 
Washington was not brilliant, but sound to the inmost recess of his large 
heart, and endowed with the Fabian genius of unyielding firmness under 
circumstances which would have sickened most men. Washington would 
forget his own self and had the divine gift of waiting. Napoleon, on the 
other hand, is probably the most brilliant character of modern times. 
Glory was his very idol. When his first laurels encircled his brow, and 
Europe stood amazed at his Italian victories, his saying, often repeated 
in despatches and addresses to his soldiers, was : " We shall do greater 
things yet." Grandes choses — things of great n^iown for all ages formed 
the constellation by which he shaped his course. 

Washington was throughout his life a self -limiting man ; Napoleon was 
fever a self-stimulating man. The fever of g-rajideur — grandeur of name, 
[grandeur of deeds — consumed him." Washington was modest ; Napo- 
leon came to ruin by untamable pride. Washington was obedient to 
the law — a law-abiding man if ever there was one. Napoleon constantly 
broke down the law when it appeared necessary to him, and it ap- 
peared thus often. Washington aided in creating a new e mpire ; Napo- 
leon aimed at creating a " new system " — a '' new state of things." 
Washington helped politically to foim a new nation, and gladly accepted 
the aid of his com peers ; Napoleon stepped in when France had long 
been politically nationalized, and when a fearful internal convulsion had 
intensified pi-e-existing centralization. Wasl)iugton sought eagerly the 



WASHINGTON Al'/D NAPOLEON. 5' 

advice of his friend s and_companions — such as Hamilton and Madison. 
Napoleon looked upon himself as Destiny. Louis XIV. had said : 
" L'etat c'est moi.'' We almost hear Napoleon say : " L'histoire c'est 
moi." Napoleon compared his career and his relation to his followers — 
the marshals and others — with those of Christ and Mohammed. "■•'•' He 
ended, indeed, with repeating the self-deification of Alexander as closely 
as it could be done in the nineteenth century, 

Washington arose out of a struggle for independence — a severance of 
colonies from a distant mother-country. Napoleon arose out of a fearful 
internal revolution. The former belonged to a revolution which consisted 
chiefly in the disavowal of allegiance to the crown of England, and left 
intact all the elementary institutions of political existence inherited from 
the mother-country ; the latter succeeded to a revolution which rooted 
up the whole preceding jiolity except centralism. 

Washington is daily growing jn the aftection of history, and there is 
a remarkable unifoi-mity of opinion regardiiig his character, at homeland 
abroacrfthere ls~the" g reatest" differ ence of opinion regarding Napoleon's 
character, and hoAveverjnany may admire him, no one can be.said to loye 
liis memory, except some surv^ivors who have received acts of personal 
kindness at his hands. No one loves puAver merely because it is power. 
Could we even love God were He only almighty ? 

Yet Washington was not personally popular ; his power consisted in 
the universal conviction that he could be confided in ; an almost unlim- 
ited trust in his integrity and wisdom by soldier and by citizen, was his 
strength ; but no endearing name was bestowed on him by his soldiers, 
or if it ever was done it did not adhere and has not become historical. 
Napoleon was worshipped by his soldiers, and received the soldierly 
nickname of the Little Corporal, as Old Fritz, 'Marshal Forward and 
Old Hickory, were bestowed on Frederick the Great, on Prince Bliicher 
and on General Jackson, and adhered to them, so that the names passed 
over into history and into the songs of the Berangers and the 
Arndts. Yet again, while Washington was universally trusted, even 



* For this statement we have two proofs : one in the Memoirs of the Duke of Eagusa, 
and the other in the Memorial de St. Helene, which admits of no extenuating intei-jjretation. 

1* 



6 WASHINGTON AND NAPOLKON. 

after a party had arisen which embittered the later years of his second 

presidential term, Joseph writes of his brother Napoleon, when endeav- 
oring to make out that the emperor was, with all his absolutism, but a 
dictator arrogating all power in order to establish jieace abroad and quiet 
at home : " Napoleon isolated himself much in Fj-ance, and Ihe peoj^le 
ended with no longer understanding what he was after."'' 

Washington seems to us to have been free from jealousy in a degree 
very rare in public men, and almost unknoAvn in distinguished captains. 
Jealousy was active in Napoleon's mind, and signally shown on several 
occasions. Washington was eminently truthful, a point in which Wel- 
lington resembled him. Napoleon rcailily discarded truth when it served 
his purpose, and laid it down even as a rule that his generals should 
misstate facts on occasions which he pointed out. Washington declined 
his pay as commander-in-chief, and allowed Congress only to refund his 
actual expenses in the field, for which purpose he kept conscientiously 
minute accounts. Napoleon always drew largely on the public treasury. 
Washington, to the end of his life, wrote a remarkably free, bold, and 
legible hand ; Napoleon's handwriting became more illegible Avith every 
rising step, until some of his letters or directions embarrassed his min- 
isters to such a degree that, after consultations, they had to recur again 
to the emperor, who washy no means put into an amiable mood on such 
occasions. Indeed, Washington's handwriting shows the calmness of the 
writer, and a proper regard for his fellow-men. Napoleon's later Avriting, 
although he wrote originally a legible hand, betrayed impetuous haste 
and an utter disregard of the intended reader. 

Washington never persecuted ; he_imprisoned no personal opponent, 
banished no personal_eneniy7 and when he died, his hands, like those of 
Pericles, wercjimstained. Napoleon banished, imprisoned, and persecu- 

1 ted, and developed a system of police, which must be called stupendous 
on account of its vastncss, power, and penetrating keenness — a system 

I pressing to this day on France like an Alj), and which makes all that 



* Tliis fearful, although unconscious judgment, occurs in a letter of Joseph to Count 
Thibaudeau, p. 320, vol. x., of Memoirs and Correspondence, political as well as mil- 
itary, of King Joseph ; and so convinced does Joseph seem to have been of its truth, that he 
repeated this passage in a letter to the wiiter of the present paper. 



WASHINGTON AND NAPOLEON. 



Aristotle wrote on the police of usurpers appear as a feeble beginning of 
that essential branch of despotism. The Dionysian " sycophant" is a 
poor bungler compared to an agent of the French secret police, and this 
gigantic police system, with the whole gendarmerie and all the thousand 
ramifications in the different spheres of society, with a counter secret 
police, was develo23ed with its stifling comprehensiveness under Naj)o- 
leon, and is, unfortunately, more truly his own than the Code which 
bears his name. 

Washington was strictly constitutional, and institutional, in his char- 
acter ; he never dreamed of concentra tion of po wer, however active and 
ardent he was in changing the madequate Congress under the Articles 
of Confederation into a j)0sitive national government, under a national 
constitution, and however exalted an opinion he had of a cherished na- 
tionality. He called state sovereignty a monster, but he had no inclina- 
tion whatever toward centralism — representation by one house, or an 
extinction of self-government in any sphere high or low. If Satan ever 
showed to him the glory and power of an earthly kingdom, it remained 
buried in his noble breast, and no act, no word of liis^has betrayed even 
so much as a straggle to beat down the tempter, y On the contrary, when 
malcontent officers intimated to him that he might rely on their support 
should he resolve to disperse Congress and make himself king, he 
promptly knew how to blend the sharpest rebuke with a gentlemanly 
forbearance toward his misguided and, perhaps, sorely tried comrades_^ 
Napoleon, on the other hand, expresses his surprise that nothing ever 
indicated a desire in Wellington to carve out a sovereignty for himself in 
the peninsula. How astonished would he have been at our Scott's refu- 
sal of a Mexican chief magistracy, and a feudal establishment of his 
army in the country.* Napoleon had no institutional instinct, no sym- 
pathy for self-government no conception even of civil liberty. The highest 
idea of liberty he seems ever to have conceived of is an appeal to uni- 
versal suff'rage for the grant of unlimited power. Absolutism tlius 
granted, the executive thus established, was in his mind the real repre- 
sentative of the people. He hated "parliamentarism;" representative 



See for an account of tliis interesting incident Lieber's Civil Liberty. 



8. • WASHINGTON AND NAPOLEON. 

government was odious to him. and lie called it aristocratic. True de- 
mocracy was, according to liim, to_be found in absolutism based on an 
act of universal suffrage. This fundamental idea of Napoleon — now 
again paraded before the world — is given at length and with great precis- 
ion and clearness by himself in a somewhat long exposition, forming one 
of his letters to the minister of foreign affairs, in the Corres[)ondence of 
Najjoleon I.*" Instead of thinking how he might become one of the 
great institutors gratefully recorded by histor}', how he might sow the 
seeds of self-ruling institutions, which would survive bim because the 
principle of self-government was inherent in them, he meditates how he 
can strike out new paths of brilliancy to make him and his people more 
glorious abroad, and how he can establish a polished despotism at home. 
His model of a policy was enlightened absorbing centralism — " all for 
the people, nothing by the people" (his early motto), with a strictly 
systematic administrative branch — claimed even now by his successor in 
throne speeches, as one of his uncle's most legitimate titles to undying 
glory. Napoleon seems to have been the re])resentative and finisher of a 
period distinguished by aggressive criticism and demolition of past forms,, 
rather than the beginner of an era of new institutions and fresh ideas. 

Washington was a citizen, a statesman, a patriot, and also a soldier ; 
Napoleon was a soldier above all other things, and gloried in being un 
Jiomme d'epre. To be the greatest captain in history was the object of his 
greatest ambition. He compares himself to Caesar, to Alexander. We 
think of citizens like Thrasybulus, Doria, or William of Nassau, when 
we seek for examples similar to Washington. 

We Americans acknowledge that Washington plainly served his 
country, to which he bowed as the great thing above him and all others. 
The greatest admirers of Napoleon say that " soldiers, money, jieoples, 
were in his hands but means to establish ^msysteme grandiose."-\ Wash- 
ington never was a dictator, and never aimed at a dictatorship^ Napo- 

* On. page 313, vol. iii. 

t Words of the editors of Memoirs and Correspondence of Napoleon I., quoted here 
because they express what thousands say, and what pervades the whole ten volumes of 
the imperial correspondence. 



WASHINGTON AND NAPOLEON. 9 

leon occasionally claimed the title to explain or excuse bis despotism or 
stringent centralism. Washington never compared himself to any one. 
Napoleon compares himself occasionally to him. Washington's policy 
was stricty domestic, and in leaving public life he urges the completest 
possible abstaining from foreign policy as one of the most important 
points of American statesmanship. Napoleon's policy became from year 
to year more foreign, until it ended almost exclusively in conquest and 
the revival of the obsolete idea of a universal monarchy, or at least of the 
absolute preponderance of France in Europe. The idea of a common- 
wealth of nations, linked together by the great laAv of nations — one of the 
most comprehensive ideas of modern civilization, and which is the a})plica- 
tion of the idea of self-government to the intercourse of nations — was 
^ipurned by him, and he tells us that had not the Russian disaster be- 
fallen him, he would have carried a long cherished plan of his into exe- 
cution. According to this plan the princes of all the dynasties under 
the influence of France, should have been educated at Paris, under his eyes, 
and returned to their homes as what all the world probably would have 
called fit prefects of France, but what he called aids in his great system. 
Peace, according to him, was to be maintained in Europe only by the de- 
cided predominance of one power, and this pOAver of course must be 
France, because far the most enlightened of all, 

Washington and Napoleon were both men of stron^jvill, as all great 
men must be, but Washington had also a correct heart, without which 
a strong will and iiery energy become only multipliers and co-efficients 
■of evil. If we designate by the word " character" a combination of will 
and principle, Washington was a man of a great character. Napoleon 
may have had a stronger will than Washington. He certainly had a 
bolder will, while Washington had greater tenacity ; but had Napoleon 
also goodness of heart and purity of purpose ? A strong will without 
a good heart is even worse than keen logic without sound judgment. 

Washington loved his country as an upright patriot, but we recollect 
no case in which his patriotism dimmed his conscientiousness. Napoleon 
placed, or pretended to place, France above all else. He did not think like 
Montesquieu, who said : " If I knew something useful to my country 
but injurious to Europe and to mankind, I should consider it a crime." l 



10 WASHINGTON AND NAPOLEON. 

Washino-ton was one of the beginners of the Revolution ; Napoleon 
steps in when the revolution of his country had already developed im- 
mense national forces. We believe Washington never changed his polit- 
ical convictions ; Napoleon commenced his career strongly tinctured with 
Jacobinism, and ended it as the embodiment of autocracy. He wrote, 
as a young officer, a very hot democratic paper, the copies of which 
were carefully suppressed at a later period. "'■'■ If Washington's pub- 
lic acts were reduced to those of private life, that is to say, if 
the same motives were applied to the latter sphere, he would appear 
as an honorable, loyal, useful, and excellent neighbor and citizen. Na- 
poleon would appear as an aggressive, restless, and difficult neighbor. 
Washington aimed at no elevation of his family, and dies a justice 
of the peace. Napoleon writes to Joseph : " I want a family of kings 
{il me faut une famille de rois)/' Washington divests himself of the 
chief magistracy voluntarily and gracefully, leaving to his people a 
document which after-ages cherish like a political gospel. Napoleon, 
in his last days, is occupied with the id;?a of family aggrandizement and 
with the means by which his house may be prevented from mingling 
again with common men. He often spoke of it during his closing illness, 
anddirects General Bertrand to advise, in his name, the members of his 
family to settle chiefly in Rome, where their children ought to be marr 
ried to such princely families as the Colonnas, and where some Bonaparte 
would not fail to become Pope. Jerume and Caroline ought to reside in 
Switzerland, Avhere, chiefly in Berne, they must establish themselves in 
the Swiss " oligarchy" (he uses this term), and where a landamnianship 
would be certain to fall to the Bonapartes ; and the children of Joseph 
should remain in America — marry into the irreat families of the Wash- 
ingtons and Jefl'ersons, and so a Bonaparte would soon b:^come presi- 
dent of the United States.f 

* A letter, addressed on Septsmber 6, 1795, by Napoleon to Joseph, in which he spea!»s 
of their brother Louis, has this characteristic and attractive passage : 

" O'est un bon sujet ; mais aussi c'est de ma fa^on : chaleur, espiit, saut:', talent, com- 
merce exact, bonts, il reunit tout." — When Louis was King of Holland Napoleon spoke 
differeutlj' of him. 

t It cannot be said that this extraordiu xry a Ivice was owing to a failing mind. On the con- 
trary, Bertrand, Montholon, and the other companions of N.ipjleun at St. llel^^na, state that 
his mind remained remarkably clear to the last diy, and Bertrand says that the emperor 
spoke repeatedly of tliese desired family sttfloments. 



WASHINGTON AND NAPOLEON. 11 

May we continue after this passage ? We wish, however, before 
chasing this paper, to direct attention to a few points more. 

Washington is one of the fairest instances of the gentleman, in the 
military as well as in the political, and in the international sphere. The 
character of the gentleman was at no period before the eyes of Napoleon, 
as a distinct type of modern humanity. Washington was appointed to 
the chief command by civilians, who had learned to honor his- character 
as a fellow-member in the continental congress ; Napoleon made each 
step toward the consulate and throne by the aid of the army and his 
military glory. Washington was great in not destroying, and brought 
back nothing that the people had abolished ; Napoleon destroyed much 
that had been sown by the revolution, and re-established much that had 
been carefully destroyed. He boasted that he had maintained equality, 
yet he re-established nobility ; he gloried in having made stable all the 
good which the revolution had tried to introduce, yet he tried to abol- 
ish again the trial by jury.* When Americans speak of Washington, 
they call him always a great and good man. Great and good have 
grown, regarding him, into one word, similar, in psychologic grammar, to 
the Kalokagathon of the Greeks, and his name as a good man, has 
spread so far that we meet with it to this day in the belief of our Indians, 
that he is the only white man who ever went or ever will go to heaven.f 
Transcendent genius is nearly all the French ascribe to Napoleon. 
Washington was all that the emergency of his country called for. Thus 
he was and remains a blessing to his country. Was Napoleon all that 
France required, and was he no more ? Did the desires of his genius and 
personal greatness not present themselves to him as those of France ? 
Even Louis Napoleon has acknowledged on his throne that it must be 
owned his uncle loved war too much. 



* See Memoirs of Count Miot. 

t Mr. Schoolcraft, on page 230 of Notes on the Iroquois, Senate Document 24, 1846, states 
that this belief of the red men exists to this day — not very complimentary to us, but unfor- 
tunately only an exaggeration of that for which there is good ground. The ancient vae viciis 
must be changed in the white man's modern history into i-Woe to a different color." 
The white man has shown little symjjathy -with the other races, and sympathy is the first 
basis of all idea of justice. 



12 WASHINGTON AND NAPOLEON. 

Both Washington and Napoleon have been men of high action, and 
some points of similarity between them must necespavily exist ; hut to find 
them is the work of ingenious research rather than of inquiring candor. 

In wi'iting this comparison of the two heroes, we have not felt guilty of 
undue boldness. To judge of a Napoleon and a Washington docs not re- 
quire a mind equal to either. The faculty of appreciating and enjoying 
is happily far greater and more common than that of producing and in- 
venting. Goethe says : "It does not require an architect to live in a 
house." Were it otherwise, did it require a mind like Shakespeare's to 
appreciate his works, or a Mozart to enjoy a Mozart, or a Paul to be 
taught by a Paul, men would not stand in need of one another, and, 
unable to form a society, could have developed no genius or talent among 
them, could have no history, and our species could not have advanced. 



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